PO Box 56076, Tawa Wellington 5249; Secretary ph 232 5901
Website: tawahistory.org.nz
The Tawa Historian
Newsletter #46 – November 2018
Dear Members and Friends,
There are some important matters to communicate to you all.
Commemoration of the centenary of the conclusion of WW1
At 10.45am on Sunday 11 November 2018, our Society and the Tawa RSA are hosting a short service which will be held alongside the Tawa Memorial in Grasslees Reserve, Tawa. It will be led by Rev Digby Wilkinson, Chaplain to the Tawa RSA and Anglican Vicar of Tawa. The service will commemorate the centenary of the coming into force of the Armistice which concluded the hostilities of World War 1. During that service a plaque will be unveiled and dedicated which records that, 100 years later, residents of Tawa gathered for this service of remembrance. All members of our Society (and friends and neighbours of members) are warmly invited to attend this memorial event. We are grateful that the WCC have moved the memorial rock from Willowbank Reserve and fixed it in place near the Tawa Memorial in good time for this service. On this rock the plaque will be placed.
Brian Webb Memorial Rose Garden
Members who visit this garden in Grasslees Reserve will notice that WCC staff have recently tidied it up; they have repositioned the original plaque, laid in 1968, so that it is no longer hidden under a large shrub; and that the plaque itself has been cleaned so that it is now able to be easily read.
Book launch – 29 November 2018 – Tawa Library
At 6.00pm on Thursday 29 November 2018 we will officially launch the publication of our 18th book or booklet, all of which shed light on the history of the district of Tawa. The latest book, Willowbank Reserve, Tawa, and its environs, by Bruce Murray and David Parsons focusses on the area of south Tawa in the vicinity of Willowbank Reserve. It is selling for $20 per copy. It deals with people (Te Patukawenga, William Earp, James Taylor, Lieutenant McCoy, James George Deck, Francis Greer and William Edward Earp), buildings or structures (McCoy’s stockade, Boscobel farmstead, Arohata Prison, and an 1860s church, long since disappeared), features of the area (the Bucket Tree, and Earp’s orchard), and communications (the Porirua Road, and the two railway lines through Tawa). It will be an ideal Christmas present and ‘stocking filler’. All members are most welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served from 6pm.
Rules regarding the placement of additional names on the Tawa Memorial
At our last Executive meeting we spent a considerable time mulling over the draft ‘rules’ which the legal team at the WCC have compiled. We have accepted the majority of their suggestions, and provided some alternatives to some. One of the key decisions to be made is to determine who, in the future, should make up the ‘committee’ which is to be given the role of deciding who is eligible and meets the criteria required in order to have their name placed on the Memorial. That committee also requires a ‘Chair’ charged with both convening the committee and taking charge of the necessary processes it will need to follow. In projecting ourselves 50 or more years into the future, we were of the view that the organisation most likely to be present in the Tawa District well and continuously into the future is Tawa College, and that therefore the Principal of the College should fulfil the role set out above.
The College Board have been approached, and, after discussion, have formally resolved that the Principal of the College (or his/her delegate) will be both permitted and encouraged to undertake that role.
Conclusion
As this will be the last of the Newsletters of 2018 (unless something urgent suddenly emerges), may I wish all members a very happy Christmas season, and happy reading as you have purchased our latest book. I look forward to seeing many of you at both the Armistice Day remembrance, and at the book launch.
Kind regards,
Bruce Murray
Chairman,
Tawa Historical Society